April was a very good month for stocks, although the doom and gloom in the media probably concealed that from you. Our Superfactory 20 index of lean company stocks did especially well, gaining almost 6% from the March low. More importantly, the difference between the SF20 and the S&P500 widened significantly.
For some reason the Boeing stock price is only updating sporadically, sometimes giving a -100% return. I’m not sure if this is due to a programming glitch or our ongoing poking at the company’s problems with the 787 Dreamliner. In any case we’ll try to get it fixed.
On to April’s results. After the table I’ve added a chart showing the trend this year so far.
|
April 2008 YTD Performance
|
||
|---|---|---|
| Name | Price | Performance |
|
WABTEC CORP (WAB) |
42.88 | 27.70 % |
|
CATERPILLAR INC (CAT) |
81.88 |
17.12 % |
|
PARKER HANNIFIN C (PH) |
79.85 | 12.39 % |
| BA (BA) | 84.86 | 9.36 % |
|
PENTAIR INC (PNR) |
36.83 | 8.93 % |
|
NIKE INC CL B (NKE) |
66.80 | 5.96 % |
|
STANLEY WORKS THE (SWK) |
48.24 | 4.28 % |
|
JOHNSON AND JOHNS (JNJ) |
67.09 |
2.46 % |
|
ILL TOOL WORKS IN (ITW) |
52.29 | 0.81 % |
|
HILLENBRAND INC (HI) |
19.04 | 0.00 % |
| SUPERFACTORY 20 AVERAGE | -0.70 % | |
|
HONDA MOTOR CO AD (HMC) |
31.75 | -4.02 % |
|
S&P 500 INDEX, RTH (^GSPC) |
1385.59 | -4.25 % |
|
ABBOTT LABORATORI (ABT) |
52.75 |
-4.33 % |
|
TOYOTA MTR CP ADS (TM) |
101.50 | -4.66 % |
|
KIMBERLY CLARK CP (KMB) |
63.99 | -6.19 % |
|
DEERE CO (DE) |
84.07 | -6.51 % |
|
TEXTRON INC (TXT) |
61.01 | -8.30 % |
|
DANAHER CP (DHR) |
78.02 |
-9.43 % |
|
TESCO PLC (TSCO.L) |
429.00 | -10.11 % |
|
NEWELL RUBBERMAID (NWL) |
20.53 | -18.08 % |
|
STEELCASE INC (SCS) |
11.08 | -31.44 % |
Andy Wagner says
Interesting comment on the radio this morning from Jim Cramer of CNBC’s “Mad Money” show: when asked whether we’re in recession, he said there are two America’s, the retail, service sector is in deep recession, but the people “who make things” are doing fine because they know enough to export them. He said we make them cheap and better than anybody, that the low value of dollar helped with overseas sales, and that “we engineer things better than anybody.”
My company sure falls into that category and I think the same is true for much of the SF20. He certainly underlines the importants of a diversified national economy that includes *making things*.
Bruno Silva says
SF20 is already positive… Do you think that the current US-EURO exchange rate is helping the people “who make things”? Have exportations increased considerably at the US?